14.71
Economic History of Financial Crises
Fall 2009
This course gives a historical perspective on financial panics. Topics include the growth of the industrial world, the Great Depression and surrounding events, and more recent topics such as the first oil crisis, Japanese stagnation, and conditions following the financial crisis of 2008.
Readings
- Koo, Richard C. The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics: Lessons from Japan’s Great Recession . Rev. ed. New York, NY: Norton, 2009. ISBN: 9780470824948.
- Morris, Charles R. The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash . New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2009. ISBN: 9781586486914.
- Taylor, John B. Getting off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and Worsened the Financial Crisis . Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780817949716.
- Selected chapters will be chosen from these books:
- Bartels, Larry M. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780691136639.
- Crafts, Nicholas, and Gianni Toniolo. Economic Growth in Europe since 1945 . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780521499644.
- Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence F. Katz. The Race between Education and Technology . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780674028678.
- Kindleberger, Charles P., and Jean-Pierre Laffargue. Financial Crises: Theory, History, and Policy . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780521243803.
- [Koo] = Koo, Richard C. The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics: Lessons from Japan’s Great Recession . Rev. ed. New York, NY: Norton, 2009. ISBN: 9780470824948.
- Duncan-Jones, Richard. Money and Government in the Roman Empire . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 23-25. ISBN: 9780521648295.
- Minsky, Hyman P. “The Financial-Instability Hypothesis: Capitalist Processes and the Behavior of the Economy.” Chapter 2 in Financial Crises: Theory, History, and Policy . Edited by Charles P. Kindleberger and Jean-Pierre Laffargue. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 13-50. ISBN: 9780521243803.
- Temin, Peter. “Free Land and Federalism: A Synoptic View of American Economic History.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 21, no. 3 (Winter 1991): 371-389.
- [Temin] “The Spoils of War: The Cause of the Great Depression,” and “The Midas Touch: The Spread of the Great Depression,” chapters 1 and 2, pp. 1-88.
- Temin, Peter. “The German Crisis of 1931: Evidence and Tradition.” Cliometrica 2 (2008): 5-17.
- Temin, Peter. “Real Business Cycle Views of the Great Depression and Recent Events: A Review of Timothy J. Kehoe’s and Edward C. Prescott’s “Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century.” Journal of Economic Literature 46, no. 3 (September 2008): 669-684.
- Temin, Peter. “Corrigendum.” Journal of Economic Literature 47 (March 2009): 3.
- [Temin] “Socialism in Many Countries: The Recovery from the Great Depression,” chapter 3, pp. 89-138.
- Brown, E. Cary. “Fiscal Policy in the ‘Thirties: A Reappraisal.” American Economic Review 46, no. 5 (December 1956): 857-879.
- Eichengreen, Barry. “Institutions and Economic Growth: Europe After World War II.” Chapter 2 in Economic Growth in Europe since 1945 . Edited by Nicholas Crafts and Gianni Toniolo. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 38-72. ISBN: 9780521499644.
- [Morris] “The Death of Liberalism,” and “Wall Street Finds Religion,” chapters 1 and 2, pp. 1-36.
- [Koo] “Japan’s Recession,” “Characteristics of Balance Sheet Recessions,” and “The Great Depression was a Balance Sheet Recession,” chapters 1 to 3, pp. 1-124.
- [Morris] “Bubble Land: Practice Runs,” and “A Tsunami of Dollars,” chapters 3 and 5, pp. 37-58, 87-112.
- 20-21 · 2008
- [Morris] “A Wall of Money,” and “The Great Unwinding,” chapters 4 and 6, pp. 59-86, 113-142.
- 22-23 · 2009
- [Koo] “Yin and Yang Economic Cycles and the Holy Grail of Macroeconomics,” and “Ongoing Bubbles and Balance Sheet Recessions,” chapters 5 and 7, pp. 157-184, 221-252.
- [Koo] “Monetary, Foreign Exchange, and Fiscal Policy During a Balance Sheet Recession,” and “Pressure of Globalization,” chapters 4 and 6, pp. 125-156, 185-220.
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗Historical OpenCourseWare
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.